Of all the bands that have been proclaimed successors to Led Zeppelin, The Tea Party, along with Soundgarden, must be the most interesting. And if Jimmy Page shared a silent admiration for the later, he was quite vocal about The Tea Party, to the point where he claimed that if Led Zeppelin were to continue after Bonham’s death, they would eventually sound exactly like Tea Party. And while this statement was more or less fair, given that Tea Party were in fact really talented, the band would enjoy only mediocre commercial success; for many albums they would go platinum in Canada, gold in Australia and completely unknown in America.
“The Interzone Mantras” is their sixth album. Their previous two, Transmission and Triptych saw them departing from the “world music” hard rock style of their first albums in favor of a more Nine Inch Nails-like and generally electronica-like approach. With “Interzone Mantras” (named after Burrough’s “The Interzone”) the band makes an effort to go “back to basics”, as they said. However, “back to basics” cannot be accurate for an album where one can hear approximately 40 instruments. That’s exactly what this album is; ambitious, yet still down to earth. Most of the songs last no more than 4:30 minutes, which means that in terms of structure the album is a “back to basics” offering. On the other hand, most songs are heavily (and gracefully) orchestrated, using instruments upon instruments that manage to enrich as much as possible the band’s sound, without ever exaggerating.
The songs that rock hard make an efficient use of the quiet-loud dynamics, bringing to mind a good portion of the better alternative rock bands of the 90’s and of course Led Zeppelin, “Lullaby”, “Angels” and “Cathartik” being the best samples. Chatwood and Burrows make a very steady rhythm section accompanying a Jeff Martin that impresses more with his Jim Morisson-like voice and his beautiful lyrics, than with his guitar, which many times (not most of them of course) lays back in favor of the complex orchestration. Check for example “Apathy”, where trumpets draw the attention with their key role during the song. And as it often happens with Tea Party, when it comes to ballads it is really hard to match them. “Soulbreaking” “Walking Wounded” and especially “Requiem” show a band with a talent for melody and orchestration, capable of creating dramatic and touching songs.
The biggest success in “Interzone Mantras” is that it sounds really consistent once again, something that couldn’t be said for their previous two (three, counting “Alhambra”) efforts. The band seem to be doing what they know best; focus on the melodic patterns that hard rock provides enriched with the special touch that their good ear for oriental (and generally world) music adds.
“Interzone Mantras” was quite honestly a step behind. It was well intended however and that is always for the best for bands that have reached their limits, seen where they could go and what they could do and decided to settle on what they know best. A very consistent work from a band that never stopped playing on a high level.
Awesome album - no dud moments whatsoever, and the twin Requiem-Mantra track at the end is one of my favourite Tea Party moments ever. I hate comparing bands, but if you go and listen to Muse's "Stockholm Syndrome", one can see where less grounded musicians tried to do basically the same thing, and didn't quite hit the mark (I still love the Muse song though!)
